Animorphs: A Reality Morph
by ProbablyMostly
Summary: Now that the Animorphs have met the Doctor, Rose Tyler, and the TARDIS, the fight against the Yeerk invasion is about to change drastically. Jake and the others aren't sure if these new 'aliens' can be trusted, and clashes occur over differing opinions on how to handle the Yeerks. And Cassie and Rose's dreams and nightmares aren't making matters any easier... Part 2 of 3
1. Chapter 1

**Animorphs Who: Part II**

**A Reality Morph**

* * *

_Jake_

My name is Jake. And it had been a really, really long week. Like most kids my age, I didn't really like when the stomach flu had me puking my guts out most of the night. Unlike most kids my age, however, I had to do that _while_ leading the human race's only resistance against an alien invasion.

Yeah. It sounds weird to me too.

I don't like being the leader. I wouldn't have chosen it, not for all the money or video games in the world, even before I knew what being a leader really meant. I guess Cassie would say that's what makes me a good leader. And Marco would tell me it's because I need to hold out for supermodels…

The thing is, someone had to do it. Step up, and keep my friends, the Animorphs, alive, and make sure that the human race could survive and fight back until the Andalites arrived to save us. Fight back against the Yeerks- a species of alien parasites that crawl into your brain and control your body. Once inside your head, they know every thought, every secret that you ever had. And they use that knowledge to stay secret, hidden, all the while forcing you to do horrible things- betray your friends, family, the human race- so they can infest even more people. The people who had been infested were called Controllers, and it was almost impossible to tell who they were.

My brother Tom was one of them.

And so we didn't trust anyone. We couldn't. Not after the fateful night when a doomed Andalite Prince named Elfangor crash-landed his ship in the construction site. We had been so young, so naïve then- worried about how our parents would kill us for taking the short cut through there. Elfangor gave us the only thing he could to help us fight back. Using a blue box we called the morphing cube, we gained the ability to acquire and morph into any animal we touched. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep us alive and fighting this long.

But someone still had to make the hard decisions, the ones that could end up getting one or all of us killed. Or infested and turned into Controllers. Or stuck in a morph permanently, like Tobias had been after staying a red-tail hawk for more than two hours. There were hundreds of horrible, painful ways we could all fail. And it had become my job to decide which one we would risk to try and save our families and our planet.

It had just never really occurred to me that getting the flu could have come so close to getting us all killed.

So when Cassie had called me on that afternoon, telling me that everything had worked out, and that Aftran and Ax were both safe and the mission had gone well, I tried _really _hard not to notice the worried tone in her voice. I wanted to be relieved: I had just managed to eat solid food for the first time in two days, and all had gone according to plan, or as much to plan as anything we ever do goes. But then Cassie told me that we were going to have to have a meeting, when everyone was feeling better, because she had to tell us something big she had learned. And yeah, I'm not nearly as good as reading people as she was. But I could tell she was nervous… that was probably just because it was Cassie, and I well… I _liked_ Cassie. And maybe it was just the remains of fever or nerves that had me imagining the way her voice cracked just a bit when she told me that Erek, our Chee android friend, had managed to help build Aftran a portable Kandrona so that she would starve death after being unable to return to the Yeerk Pool in three days. So far, the news was all good. But thing is, when you're an Animorph, you learn one thing really quickly-

Something big was never something good.

* * *

It took a couple of days for us all to really recover from being sick. Tobias took the longest, but whether that was because he got sick last, or because he was currently stuck in the body of a red-tailed hawk was unclear. What was clear was that he had apparently warned Cassie, quite vividly, what would happen to her unsuspecting veterinarian parents if they ever again tried to stick a pill up- well, he was quite specific about it, from what I hear.

We all met in Cassie's family barn. The Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Her parents were vets who worked at the Gardens, a local zoo and amusement park. And in their spare time took care of local wildlife here. Skunks that were hit by cars, wolves that accidentally ate something poisonous, etc. Cassie helped them out as much as she could. I think it was really amazing- she was the only person I knew who probably learned how to medicate a raccoon before she learned how to read.

It was all definitely useful for our purposes, anyway. I think I've probably morphed into every animal in the barn at this point… even, reluctantly, the bugs.

Once we were all settled, and Tobias had made sure there was no one nearby, Cassie stood up, and started pacing in front of us, wringing her hands nervously.

"So… I know I told you guys that everything went according to plan, and that I managed to get Aftran out by myself without any problems but… that's not entirely true…"

She paused, and sat down on a stool, staring down at her hands, which were still nervously clenched together. Across from me, my cousin Rachel (who still managed to look like a super-model, despite spending just as much time in front of toilet the past few days as me) leaned forward to look closer at her best friend. She smiled reassuringly.

"So what happened? Did Erek and the Chee have to come and provide a little back up, or what? It's no big deal," she laughed, "Even I would have had a hard time doing all that by myself."

"Yeah, and you would have just stomped your way in," teased Marco, leaning against the empty horse stalls.

"Right!" said Rachel, smiling, "And since Yeerks haven't come knocking on any of our doors, it can't have gone too bad."

Cassie still held her head down, and I started to feel even more nervous. It's true, what Rachel said- if the Yeerks had found out who we were, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. We'd be face down in the Yeerk Pool with parasitic slugs crawling into our ears.

But thinking back now… Tom… the Yeerk controlling Tom… well, I hadn't thought about it, because I was sick, and I had just chalked it up to 'normal Yeerk' behavior but… he had been more agitated than usual. Constantly gone, barely stopping home enough to keep our parents from asking too many questions…

It hadn't bothered me. Or maybe I was just trying to ignore it. If something had happened to put the Yeerks on high alert, our jobs were only going to get harder.

{It'll make you feel better if you just hurry up and spit it out, Cassie,} Tobias's thought-speak echoed in our heads, {Trust me on that one.}

Cassie took deep breath, nodded, and looked up at us all.

"There's more aliens here, on Earth. They look human, but their technology- it's like nothing we've seen. They said their names were Rose Tyler and The Doctor. They helped me save Aftran and still get back in time to save Ax. And… and they know. Who we are, what we can do."

She inhaled, and quickly finished.

"Because I told them."

* * *

30 minutes of rapid fire questioning, explanations, and repeated use of the word 'insane' later, it had been decided that we had no choice but to go meet these people. Aliens. It wasn't entirely clear, although Cassie was fairly confident that the Doctor, at least, was not from Earth. Apparently Rose Tyler might be from Earth in another dimension- it was way too confusing, and since Cassie wasn't entirely sure herself, she thought it might be better if we just talk to them.

It was a relief to find out that Erek seemed to trust them, and had actually been to see them at their ship several times over the past few days. The Chee were complete pacifists, programmed to be incapable of violence, but it didn't mean they were naïve or foolish. And they were a biggest source of inside information on the Yeerks. Erek would probably have heard something if these new aliens were working with our enemies.

Still, I didn't know what to expect when Cassie led us to a blue telephone box, like the kind from the old Superman movies. But a space ship.

A space ship that was much, much bigger than it appeared from the outside.

Of course, as strange as the "ship" was, it was nothing compared to the man called the Doctor. He was… giddy. Like a little kid. But confident. Cheerful. Warm. Like a whirlwind, he had introduced himself, and then almost nonchalantly assured us he would defeat the Yeerks. As if it was something he did every day, defeating alien invasions. Rose was calm, at least, but she still had that unnerving confidence about her. And they both had English accents…? Why did aliens have an Earth accent?

{Is this guy for real?} Tobias thought privately, so that only my friends and I could hear him.

I shrugged casually. We were in a spaceship that was bigger on the inside, and our resident alien, Ax, had been in state of shocked silence since we had walked in the door. Things had gotten a little out of our area of expertise at this point. The man, alien, whatever, who called himself the Doctor turned to us now.

"Right, any questions so far?"

It wasn't until he stopped jumping around then that I managed to take a good look at him. His face was so cheerful. But… and maybe it was stupid. Maybe I was projecting, or just desperate to believe all the promises he had just made us. I don't know.

But when you've been fighting a war as long as we have, you know how to recognize a fellow warrior when you see one. I didn't know who he fought, what side he was on, whether he won or lost. But the Doctor had seen war, understood it.

"Yeah, I've got a question," Marco said, "Why should we believe any of this? This could be a trick, a trap, whatever."

"Yeah, I mean, no offense," Rachel added, "I trust Cassie, and this-" she gestured around to the ship interior, "It's all impressive, but you don't really seem like the type of person who can just show up and end an intergalactic war."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Doctor, looking a bit offended, "And I suppose if I looked more like a Sontaran you'd believe me!"

"A what now?"

"It's another kind of alien," Rose interjected, hoping to help.

{I have never heard of any species by that name, Prince Jake.}

Ax was pawing nervously at the ship's metal floor. He had been uncomfortable with the whole thing to start, and meeting the Doctor and Rose had not really helped at all.

"Prince…?" Rose began, but Rachel interrupted.

"Why are you so eager to help anyway?"

She crossed her arms in front of her, staring down both of them.

"Because it's what we do," said Rose simply.

Her eyes had become harder now, and she stepped forward in front of the Doctor in a way that looked almost defensive.

The situation was getting a bit tense. I saw Cassie close her eyes as though she had a headache, and Tobias was clearly keeping a close watch on the door and the Doctor.

I decided maybe it was time to speak up.

"Look, I mean, it's not that we're not really grateful for all that you've done," I began, "But you've got to understand- this isn't exactly a picnic. This isn't fun or safe. People are dying, being enslaved. People we care about. We can't afford to take any risks, not with what's at stake here."

The Doctor turned now, and met my eyes. We both knew, right then. I think at least. Like I said, I could have been projecting. Or something. But I think we both recognized that other knew all too well not only the cost of war, but the cost of calling the shots. What being the one that people trusted to make the decisions meant, and the consequences of getting it wrong.

"Well, let me show you then," he said, serious for a brief moment before grinning again, turning to address all of us, "Anywhere you want to go, all of space, all of the universe, although unfortunately not time."

He tapped what must have been the controls to the ship, and stared as us all expectantly. His eyes were bright again, and he fiddled with a small metal tool in his hands.

"Umm…" I said.

None of us knew what to say.

"You know, our knowledge of 'all of space' is pretty limited," Marco said, "Pretty much every trip we've made to another planet so far has ended with us running away in terror."

"Leera was quite pretty," Cassie said, "Although I'm not sure they'd like to see us again."

"Ax? Any ideas?" I asked.

{I do not have unlimited knowledge of the universe and its planets, Prince Jake.} said Ax, {That would be impossible.}

I swore for a second the Doctor wanted to correct him, and felt myself smile a bit.

"Ax, don't call me Prince."

{Yes, Prince Jake. However, if this ship's capabilities are indeed what the Doctor claims, I believe I might have a suggestion.}

"Do we finally get to see the mythical, majestic, perfect Andalite homeworld?" Marco said sarcastically.

The Doctor and Rose looked curious, both at the suggestion and Marco's sarcasm. If Ax picked up on the tone, he didn't show it.

{No. My people are very suspicious of strangers. And it's extremely… uncommon… for my home world to receive any non-Andalite visitors. Humans alone would cause great concern given the current situation with Earth.}

All four of Ax's eyes turned to look directly at the Doctor now.

{A visitor with technology as foreign as this would likely start a widespread panic.}

"Bummer," Rachel said flatly, "So where then?"

"Pick somewhere fun, yeah?" said Rose, smiling softly, "Aliens and space aren't always about fighting a war."

{Fun would be pleasant change,} Tobias said, {What do you think Ax-man?}

{I do have a suggestion. A planet called _Gaimarf Estreen Esofi_. It could be considered my people's equivalent of your Grand Canyon. A natural wonder, quite aesthetic.}

"Brilliant!" said the Doctor.

He pressed a serious of buttons, and something that I assumed was relevant to space travel appeared on a screen.

"Would you point it out to me, Aximili? These charts shouldn't be too difficult for you to follow."

{Of course.}

Ax walked over to the buttons, his hoofs echoing against the metal floors. I looked at my friends. Rachel was more definitely more relaxed, and now leaned casually against the railing next to Cassie and Rose. Marco well still grumpy, but well, I kind of expected that. He was my best friend, but he wasn't exactly what you'd call an optimist.

Tobias also looked grumpy. But he was a hawk. It was kind of a permanent expression for him these days.

"Oh!" exclaimed Rose suddenly, "I almost forgot about Aftran! I should go ask if she wants to come, I can let her ride along in me. Or with you if you'd like, Cassie. I think she'd like to see something new, yeah?"

My jaw dropped, and I saw Rachel and Marco staring at the blonde Brit like she had started speaking Chinese. Ax looked like he might be sick.

{You would willingly invite a Yeerk parasite into your head?! Has Cassie not informed you what they do?}

And then Rose looked… offended. I mean, I knew Ax's hatred for the Yeerks ran deep. I could understand that. There were a lot of times where I felt the same way. I'd even had a Yeerk in my head, once. The Yeerk who had once been in my brother Tom and was starved out of me by my friends. Yeah, Rose didn't have the same history with the Yeerks that we did. But she and the Doctor- and he looked a bit uncomfortable too, I saw- they had been to the Yeerk Pool. They had fought Visser Three. Yes, Aftran was on our side, but… well, I didn't get it.

"Unless you've got a better way for her to get out of her box. I'm not about to leave her behind just because it's a bit uncomfortable," Rose said with a glare.

"A bit uncomfortable?" Marco repeated, "A bit uncomfortable? Um, are you both insane? Because I feel as the though the experience of having a parasitic slug that can control your every move and read your every thought in your head might qualify as more than 'a bit uncomfortable'"

"Rose is right," said Cassie, speaking up for the first time since we had entered the ship, "Aftran would love the experience. And she and Rose went through a lot in the Yeerk Pool together. They understand each other's boundaries."

I knew Cassie was right. She had understood the situation with Aftran from the beginning, and I trusted her instincts on this too. We all did. Except maybe Ax, but that was expected. Understanding it didn't stop me from feeling uneasy though. Did the Doctor and Rose really understand how serious the Yeerk invasion was?

There was a long uncomfortable silence.

"So! _Gaimarf Estreen Esofi_! A quick holiday, and then we'll get everything sorted out!"

The Doctor spun around and started hitting buttons. Behind me, the doors of the ship swung shut. Apparently Ax had given him enough of the coordinates to find wherever we were going.

Then I saw both Cassie and Rose grip the railing tightly. I did the same just as the Doctor flipped a lever and called out.

"Allons-y everyone!"

"He speaks French?"

Rachel managed to mutter before a loud… whooshing? wheezing? …noise echoed around us. Everything began to rattle and shake, and I instantly understood why everyone was holding on to something. My legs nearly fell out from under me.

VWOOOOORP! VWOOOOOORP! VWOOOOOOORP!

{OH FU-}

Tobias had fallen off the rafter where he had perched and flapped wildly around the room. I saw Rachel had slipped and had grabbed onto Cassie's leg in attempt to hold on. Even Ax's hoofs stumbled and slid. The Doctor seemed unaffected, running around hitting buttons, and flipping switches like the whole place was perfectly still.

And suddenly it was.

Tobias flared and his talons snagged a piece of foam that looked like it was duct-taped to a pipe. Marco had been knocked to his butt, and was clearly not happy about it.

"Did we crash? We better have crashed. Sir, I am going to have to see your driver's license. I have flown in spaceships. That is not how spaceships fly."

{You could have _warned_ me.}

Tobias was fluffed up angrily, and he glared at us all one by one, as if we could have known.

"Sorry! I thought maybe Cassie would have mentioned-"

"-I thought you would like to surprise them-" Cassie laughed.

"-Weeelll, I did hoped you hadn't, honestly. It's all rather fun. This old girl, she likes to show off. Well, we both do. It's nothing personal. I'm actually a remarkably good pilot, all things considered. The TARDIS is just a lot of work. Worth it, though."

The Doctor patted a glowing tube affectionately, and laughed.

"Well, go on! Take a look!"

I turned, and stared at the double doors. There was no sign we had moved at all now that the rattling had stopped.

"It's someone else's turn this time," said Cassie, and everyone turned to look at me.

"All you, O Fearless Leader," said Marco, rubbing his elbow.

"Right…" I said.

I guess this was part of the job. Going in first and leading the way when no one else wanted to. Rose walked over to a corner of the room, and reached her hand into a small water filled tank that I hadn't noticed until now. Aftran. It would probably be better to distract everyone while she let the Yeerk crawl into her head…

Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the doors, trying to look more confident than I felt. At least Cassie seemed sure that things had gone well. That was something, at least. I opened the doors hesitantly.

"Whoa."


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel

"You know, for as much as the Andalites don't understand humor, they really do have this whole 'natural wonder' thing down," I said, "I think I might need to buy a sweater in that color there. Or a dress. Whole new wardrobe even."

I pointed to the flowers that covered the trunks of the strange, slender, alien trees that spread out in a wide grove around us. They were large, but delicate, and were a shade of color that somehow managed silver, blue, green, and pink all at once.

"Well, see if we can find something in the gift shop on the way out then," Marco said sarcastically.

{I do not believe they have anything like your Earth gift shops, here, Marco}, Ax said, {The enjoyment is supposed to come from the intense pleasantness of the natural environment, not purchase of goods.}

"Sarcasm, Ax-man, sarcasm."

Before us, I could see a clearing. Several small streams wove into the wooded area, and then back out into the field, in unnatural, perfectly curved separated loops. Like a rings on a tree, or a spider web.

"They probably don't even have my size," I said, laughing, "I mean, human isn't really the standard in this part of the universe."

"I swear sometimes that's the worst part of space travel," joked Rose, "All the best outfits end up on the least human-shaped species, you know?"

"So tragic," I heard Cassie call out sarcastically from behind us.

Cassie was still lingering in the thickest part of the trees, observing these small silvery bat-like creatures. They were flying agilely through the trees; drinking the nectar from the flowers before landing on all for limbs in the woven, moss covered branches. Tobias had been checking them out too, while he flew high overhead, although for different reasons.

{Seriously, you guys need to check this place out from up here,} called out Tobias, {Its seriously like a painting, you know, all stars and curls and patterns by that guy who cut his ear off or whatever?}

"Oh, Vincent Van Gogh!" the Doctor smiling, "You know, I've always wanted to meet him. We should go when we get back Rose!"

Rose smiled and laughed. I couldn't blame her- the Doctor was _hot_. I mean, the messy hair, gorgeous smile… an older guy too. I mean, said he was an alien. But an alien with a gorgeous British accent…

I mean, I was dating a guy who spent most of his time as a hawk. I couldn't really judge.

But attractive aliens aside, his spaceship the TARDIS had somehow managed to nearly instantly take us a distant planet. And Cassie made it seem like he had managed to scare the crap out of Visser Three. Anyone who could do that was someone I wanted on our team. We could definitely use that advantage in a fight. Which gave me an idea…

"Hey Ax," I said, "Are there any animals we could acquire here that would be useful for a fight? Like some kind of big super-predator or something?"

"Of course you would ask that," Marco moaned, "Can't we just go somewhere for five minutes without starting to considering it's tactical advantages?"

"Hey, I'm just being prepared," I retorted, "Any extra firepower helps."

"Well," interrupted Jake, "If there's something here that's going to eat us, I'd kind of like to know in advance. Ax?"

"I would also prefer not to be devoured," said Rose.

"Frankly, it'd be a bit embarrassing after all the things we've survived already," The Doctor added, "Completely ruin my reputation and all."

{Most of the species here are either herbivores or insectivores, Prince Jake,} Ax answered, {The only predators are too small to be of much concern, at least for beings our size.}

I heard Jake sigh.

"Ax, don't call me Prince in front of the new people. They're going to get the wrong idea."

"I assume from your tone that you are not actually a member of a royal family, yeah?"

The Doctor and Rose were both smiling curiously at Jake, and the rest of just laughed as he sighed even louder now.

"It's an Andalite thing. The equivalent of a general or something. Since I sort of ended up in charge of this crazy train…"

"Emphasis on crazy," said Marco.

"Right. It's a term of respect, but I'd really, really prefer if you didn't use it Ax."

{Yes, Prince Jake.}

We all laughed now, even Rose and the Doctor… I guess Prince wasn't any weirder than just going by the Doctor though.

The trees had disappeared, the spirals of water grew smaller and smaller until they formed a small pool in the center. The ground was covered in greenish-purple broad leaves instead of grass, with occasional yellow flowers poking out. Ax ran out ahead of us, looking the closest to happy I've ever seen him. If you didn't count the times at the mall food court where he ate everything in sight. He practically skipped over a small circle of boulders.

"Seriously, how is this place even real?" Jake said, lingering back a bit to keep an eye on Cassie, "Isn't nature supposed to be like, random or whatever?"

"You'd be surprised," chuckled the Doctor, "All that infinite randomness in the universe, there's gonna be stuff that is completely not-random."

"Honestly, it's all incredible though. You'd be amazed at what we've seen, Your Highness," Rose added.

Marco snorted as Rose giggled, her eyes lit up mischievously now. Jake just shook his head.

As we moved further into the clearing, the Doctor bent down, plucked one of the yellow flowers and twirled it between his fingers before handing it to Rose. They were so adorable. It'd be annoying if it wasn't so obviously sincere.

"I can see why the Andalites like it though," Marco said, "Nature and order, it's a humorless tree-hugger's dream."

{It just keeps going like this, too, so far as I can see,} said Tobias, swooping down to land on a boulder that had formed into a narrow arch, {Like it was planned out perfectly. Not an ugly thing anywhere. I'd almost feel bad eating one of the little critters running around here.}

"_Almost_," I laughed.

{Hey, a hawk's gotta eat,} Tobias laughed.

"Did that take some getting used to? I mean, space food was tricky enough, yeah?" Rose asked, "But I didn't have to go out and well… kill it myself."

{Well, the hawk part of me never really got the hang of eating hamburgers, so I adjusted. No big deal. And the wings really make up for it.}

"Speaking of, I think I'm coming up to join you," I said, and the bald eagle's feathers began to spread out in a pattern over my skin.

"Oh, look at you. That is just brilliant. I had been hoping to get a better look at how the process worked…"

The Doctor came over to take a closer look just as my legs shrank down to tiny, eagle-sized ones. He pulled out a pair of glasses and watched as bones in my arms shifted to be more wing-like. Rose followed him. Her face was a mixture of fascination and horrified concern. I knew why- morphing was almost never pretty or predictable. Cassie was the only one who could manage to do it well.

"Does it feel as bad as it looks?" asked Rose as my eyes swelled and shifted in my skull.

"Naah-aaawghk!"

I began before my lips stretched forward to form a hard, curved yellow beak.

"You can't feel anything, it just looks gross. You should see when we do the fly," laughed Marco.

He shuddered at the memory as I finished the morph and spread my wings. All seven feet of my wingspan caught the air and I took off, climbing higher and higher.

"Amazing, an eagle?"

I heard Rose asking below me and chuckled internally.

{A bald eagle,} I thought down to her, {Very American.}

{Hey, there's a lot more red-tailed hawks running around the good old USA than there are bald eagles. I'm gonna vote for a change of our national animal.}

Tobias had taken off. Next to me, he looked like a pigeon, he had a lot flight experience than I did and was able to catch up in moments.

{Whatever hawk-boy! Don't be jealous that I'm the one they put on the stationary!}

I could hear the Doctor's loud sincere laughter from below us. My friends looked like ants now, but I could still see every hair on their heads. My eagle eyes scanned the wide alien landscape. Everything was brightly colored and laid out in artistic swirls. Even the mountains in the distance curved upwards in strange and unnatural curls.

{See,} said Tobias, just to me now, {Just like that van Gogh guy. A painting, as far as these hawk eyes can see.}

A herd of animals that almost looked like darker, shorter giraffes was running through the fields and across another set of the spider web streams about a mile away from where we had taken off. I saw the TARDIS still where the Doctor had parked it, looking just as out of place as it had back in the woods near Cassie's barn.

{Does he really think that counts as camouflage? I bet it doesn't even look normal in England.}

{I mean, it had a pretty decent cloaking system when we first started heading towards them,} said Tobias, flying in a lazy circle above me now. {Ax was impressed, at least.}

{Ax just doesn't like it when Andalite technology gets shown up,} I laughed.

{Yeah, that too. He's really nervous about all this, but I think the road trip is exciting for him anyway.}

Tobias chuckled. Below us, I saw that Ax had finished circling the, well, circles on the field below, and returned to the others. The Doctor was now staring at his hooves, pulling out the glasses as he bent down to take a closer look. I figured he just found how Andalites managed to eat without mouths. The hoof-absorption thing was kind of weird to us too. But the Doctor wasn't weirded out. He was… giddy. Like a little kid. He claimed to have seen the whole universe, but here he was acting like well, me at a 50% sale at the Limited in the mall... Rose just watched him. I'm sure she was just as curious, but at least she acted respectful. Calmer. I don't know, it's like she actually understood that as nice as things were now, we might be fighting a war together later.

{Do you think we can trust them?} I asked Tobias.

{Well, it's not like we have much of choice at this point.}

{Grizzly is always an option.}

{Yeah, well, let's maybe save that for a last resort.}

Tobias sighed wearily before he continued.

{I don't know. Cassie trusts them. And I trust Cassie's instincts for this kind of thing. But they're not from our world. Not even our universe, if you believe what they say. That makes things a lot harder to predict.}

{Yeah. I'm not exactly in a hurry to have a repeat of… you know.}

I didn't want to say it. David, the last person we had trusted. The boy we had given the morphing ability to a while back. Who we had tried to help after his parents were turned into Controllers, make an Animorph. It hadn't ended well. We all… I had to do some horrible things in the end, before he could betray us to the Yeerks.

I still hear him screaming sometimes, in my nightmares.

{Yeah… none of us are.}

Tobias understood immediately. It had been hard on all of us. I watched as he caught a thermal and rose higher and higher as the warm air filled his wings.

{I guess we keep an eye on the situation. Wait and see, for now,} I said.

{Pretty sure that's all we can do,} replied Tobias.

Below us, I saw everyone staring up at us. The Doctor, Rose, looked particularly in awe. Jealous even. Chuckling, I flapped my wings a bit, climbing higher towards where Tobias now drifted. I knew how to make them even more jealous.

{You know, since we've got a captive audience… I'll race you back down!}

I adjusted the eagle's wings, and turned down into a sharp dive towards the ground. The air blowing past became so intense.

{HA!} said Tobias as he flew past me like a red and brown bullet.

Bald eagles may be some of the largest birds of prey, but they weren't the fastest. Still it was easy to forget that as I rocketed towards the ground at over 70 mph.

"TSEEEEER!"

Tobias let out a screech before flaring his wings and shooting horizontally only inches over the top of our audience's heads. There wasn't a person or bird alive that could fly better than him. I didn't trust myself to get quite that close, but the bald eagle's huge wingspan was impressive enough. I slowed down as I leveled out and swerved back around to land in front of the others. Rose and the Doctor were actually clapping.

"Bravo!"

"You make it look so effortless," Rose added, looking not just a little bit jealous.

{The eagle brain does most of the work,} I said.

{Although, _I _really am just that good. Lots of practice,} chuckled Tobias, now circling above us again.

"Whatever, Bird-boy," said Marco, "Just try not to scalp us next time."

{Marco, you are literally the one who has the least to fear about that,} Tobias joked, {I'd had to have plowed through the poor Doctor's skull to even get close to your height.}

"Ha ha. Very original."

I began to demorph, my flesh expanding and distorting as the feathers melted back into my skin. This time, the Doctor didn't come over to get nearly as close, but he still stared intently, just a curious as before. He was fiddling with a metal, alien-looking tube in his hands.

"Oh gross!" said Rose.

I couldn't blame her. The feathers at just sucked themselves back into my skin at once, leaving me looking probably like some sort of freakish, bald half-human.

"Sorry," she said, "It's rather unsettling."

{No problem. It freaks us all out.}

The Doctor stepped a bit forward, holding the metal tool up purposefully now. He looked around to all of us.

"Do you mind if I get a quick scan? I am rather curious about the technical aspects of the mor-"

{I would prefer that you do not. My people have laws forbidding the sharing of our technology with other species. These humans… my friends are an exception only due to extreme circumstances.}

Ax had interrupted before anyone had time to even think of a response. The Andalites were stubborn, almost stupidly so, about their technology, but at least we knew why now. The Yeerks had been stuck on their own planet until an Andalite took pity on them and gave them the technology to travel. Now they were conquering the galaxies, destroying as they went.

I mean, normally, I would have been a little mad that Ax just jumped in without asking any of us, but I kind of agreed with him for now. As nice as the Doctor and Rose had been so far, we couldn't afford to take unnecessary risks. The morphing power was the only advantage we had. If we lost that, we were screwed.

"Right, well, I suppose I can understand that," the Doctor said, "Every species has its secrets."

I finished the morph, and stood in my leotard amongst the others now. An awkward silence. A small gust of wind blew some sort of beautiful smell through the area, and I could have swore I heard like, flutes or something in the distance.

"It really is beautiful here," said Cassie, trying to break the tension, "I almost don't want to leave."

"Best thing about the TARDIS?" said the Doctor with a smile, "We can always come back. Or see even more places. The whole universe."

"Yeah, well, we need to kick some Yeerk butt before we plan too many vacations," I said.

"I thought kicking Yeerk butt _was_ your idea of a vacation?" Marco smirked.

I rolled my eyes, ignoring him, and Marco moved on to his next question.

"So, what _is_ our plan O Fearless Leader?" he said to Jake.

We all turned to Jake now; even the Doctor, who looked like he was used to taking charge. Jake rubbed at his forehead before answering.

"I guess we've got to get back. Figure out what we know, and what we can do. Pool our resources," he said, and I swore he purposely didn't look at Ax then, "and then decide how we're going to make our next move."

I took one last look around at the alien planet. As peaceful and pretty as this place was, it wasn't really my style, not when the Yeerks were still threatening the Earth. Action was something I could definitely agree to.

"Right," I said with a grin, "Let's do it."


	3. Chapter 3

Marco

So apparently the bumpy ride on the way out to the alien world was not a fluke. My friends and I struggled to hang on to the flimsy railings held together with what appeared to be nothing but duct tape and one of those swimming pool noodle toys as once again the TARDIS rattled through what I assumed was space. The entire thing shook and bounced like a trashcan that had be kicked down a rocky cliff. After riding with the Doctor, who was smiling like a maniac the entire way, I'm pretty sure I could claim that I wasn't worst driver in the universe without everyone rolling there eyes.

Pretty sure, anyway, since we didn't actually know if he had hit anything…

My name is Marco, by the way. The Marco. The cute one of the group. The brains of the operation. Or at least the cynic. And I _definitely_ still wasn't entirely ready to trust these strangers who claimed to be from another planet, no matter how cool their toys were. We had been screwed over by aliens before, and I for one wasn't going to be the one who let their guard down. No matter how adorable it was when Rose smiled and bit her lip…

"So how long were we actually gone for? Anyone know?" Jake asked as he steadied himself beside me.

{By my count, approximately 94 of your Earth minutes,} Ax said, {Though it is difficult to say if time was indeed traveling at normal speed. My internal clock would not adjust for such differences.}

"_Normal speed?_" the Doctor scoffed, "What do you reckon the normal speed for time is then?"

His face had formed an expression that appeared somewhere between amused and offended. I guess being a time traveler makes you look at things differently. Rose was laughing again and I flashed my best devil-may-care grin in her direction.

{Somebody open the door, I'm curious,} said Tobias.

Cassie was closest, and pushed the doors outward. It looked like we had landed almost exactly where we started. Like we hadn't even left. Apparently Tobias thought so too, because he flew out to check. We all held our breathe, wondering if it still might be some kind of trick. In a moment, he was back.

{It's like we never left. I mean, it can't have been more than minutes we were gone. The pair of rabbits over in Cassie's field haven't even moved."

"Are you sure?" Jake asked.

{Are you questioning my rabbit watching skills?} Tobias said, hawk eyes staring hard at Jake from his perch on the railing.

Jake shrugged a 'no offense' as Rachel laughed, rolling her eyes.

{Yeah, thought so,} Tobias continued sounding smug, {From what I can tell from a quick fly-by, we just traveled to an alien planet, spend well over an hour there, and arrived back with only minutes passing on Earth.}

"Even better timing than when we went the other day," said Cassie with a smile, "Do you think it's because you've been in our universe longer now?"

The Doctor and Rose both shrugged.

"Seriously though, that's pretty cool," said Rachel.

"Pretty cool?" I replied, "Pretty cool is the fact that Ax has managed to rig cable TV for himself in the woods. This was awesome. This was spectacular. This was Star Wars level alien awesome."

"OH! I love those movies!" the Doctor chimed in happily. "I'm sorry about the prequels though. Kind of have to take the fall for some of that I'm afraid. I told George, no one likes the Gungans in real life, they're not going to like them any better on film, but he just refused to listen to reason…"

He shrugged nonchalantly as we stared open-mouthed at him. Like he was mildly disappointed with the performance of the local baseball team in the last game. Like it didn't even occur to him that what he said was earth-shatteringly insane.

{George… George Lucas? _The_ George Lucas?}

Tobias managed to stutter out. Rose smacked the Doctor's arm playfully.

"You serious? You don't even know if they've seen the film yet!" she said, chastising him, "I swear, you're going to ruin someone's day with these pop culture references one of these times…"

"I'm gonna go ahead and suggest right now that once this is all over, we go and meet any and all celebrities we can find," I interrupted, "Cleopatra. Julia Roberts. The Spice Girls. Marilyn Monroe. Do you think she'll sing 'Happy Birthday' to me if I ask nicely?"

"Marco's fantasies aside," said Rachel, "This means we can fix it all, right? Go back before the war even started. Stop the Yeerks from even coming to Earth. Stop them from ever even leaving their home planet. No fighting. No death. No more nightmares from morphing ants or getting stuck as a hawk."

"No more Tom as a Controller," Jake added.

"Or my mom."

I turned to my friends, practically giddy with just the thought of it being possible. They all looked like I felt. Rachel had finally said what we had all been thinking, what we had been too afraid to say until we had actually seen the TARDIS in action. It all seemed to good to be true. Impossible. But if this was really a time machine… then…

Except then I looked at the Doctor, and the look on his face… well, the realization hit me like a punch in the gut.

"We don't know if it'll be possible to go back that far yet…" said Rose. Her face was distressed, and she spoke softly, trying to gently tell my friends to not get their hopes up. Not that it would help at this point. Hopes were up, and they were about to be dropped and smashed.

"But if we can get it to work!" Rachel said, "I mean, I know Ax isn't used to this technology, but he's a smart guy, maybe he can help!"

"We have to take the chance, at the very least," said Jake, "This could change everything!"

I looked at my best friend, his eyes lit up with excitement. He hadn't noticed the look of guilt on the Doctor's face. Or Rose's impossibly sad hazel eyes. Cassie stood across from me on the other side of the TARDIS console. Unlike the others, she knew something was wrong. We don't always see things the same way, Cassie and I. She's all about reading people and emotions and feelings. But me? I specialize in facts. On pushing emotions out of the way, and seeing a the straight line through a situation. Both of us saw it, though. I don't know if Cassie had figured out why just yet, like I had. But we both knew that what we were asking for wasn't going to happen.

"Jake…" she said, going to stand next to him. I watched as she put her hand on his arm, kind of wishing there was someone there to do that for me.

"I'm sorry. Oh, I am so, so sorry," the Doctor said, voice cracking, "But I can't. I'm so sorry."

"What do you mean you can't? You said you would help us."

Rachel took an aggressive step forward. I thought she might morph straight to grizzly right then and there, and I wasn't about to be the one to explain and be ripped to pieces. Because even though I understood what the Doctor was trying to say, why it couldn't be done, I wasn't exactly in the friendliest mood myself right now. There aren't many people that I'd be willing to stand up in front Rachel and her rage for. Right now, these two weren't on the list.

"Oh, god, he would if he could. In a moment, you have to believe us," Rose looked heartbroken as the words came out of her mouth, "If there was a way..."

"You said you would find a way. You told Cassie you would help us," said Jake. Even with Cassie holding his hand now, he looked like he wasn't exactly ready to stop Rachel from going at them either.

{You have deliberately misled us. It seems our decision to trust you may not have been well made.}

The Doctor leaned over the console, hands supporting his bent form as his head hung low. He wouldn't meet our eyes. If I hadn't felt so bitter over the moment of false hope, I'd probably feel bad for the guy.

"I can find a way, to fix this, to make it better. I can stop the invasion, save your planet. But I can't do it like that," he spoke quietly, "I wish I could, but-"

"But you can't?! You have a time machine!," Rachel shouted, "What about the people who have died. The families that have suffered! Tobias is stuck as hawk! And you're telling me YOU'RE SORRY?!"

{Rachel, it's okay. I-}

"No. It's not okay! This is not okay!,"

I saw brown fur begin to sprout, rippling across her skin like a wave. Crap. I shot a quick glance at the door, making sure it was still open in case this got ugly. This space ship might be bigger on the inside, but it didn't mean we were gonna be able to run and hide if a fight went wrong.

"You have to understand, there are points-"

"Rachel, wait, he's-"

{Calm down!}

"NO!"

Rachel stormed up to the Doctor, as her muscles slowly bulked into the grizzly's huge form. Rose, Cassie, Tobias fell silent mid-sentence, and I saw Jake finally snap out of his disappointed shock. But before he or anyone else could react, the Doctor spun and rounded on Rachel, looking furious.

"And what would you do? Do you honestly think, for one moment, that if I could do it, I wouldn't!"

I swear Rachel faltered. A girl who regularly tore alien monsters into pieces and who was currently halfway morphed into a grizzly bear took a step back from this previously ordinary-looking man. It was like a switch had been flipped. One minute, he was gleeful. Friendly. Human. Now his face looked inhuman with rage.

"There is nothing I wouldn't give to go back! To change it! But I can't! There are things that can't be changed! That you have to live with, no matter what the pain!"

I had stood before Visser Three in his most vicious morphs. I had fought in battles that against creatures that most people wouldn't dare imagine. Nightmares were my day job. And I was scared of him. This alien who called himself the Doctor. It was like this ancient monster had suddenly taken over him. His eyes had become dark and wild. I almost thought the room shook around us.

"I will help you! I WILL FIX THIS!"

The Doctor's voice shook. Not with anger, at least not at us. I don't know, emotions weren't my thing. But man, he _knew_. You could see it in his eyes. I don't know what he had done, who he had lost. Rachel had fallen back now, but still finished the morph. She didn't move to attack or anything. I don't know if Tobias had said something. Maybe she just realized that mauling this guy wasn't going to help matters.

"But I'm sorry. More sorry than you could ever believe… I can't do that. Not now. Not ever."

Rose moved and stood beside the Doctor, holding his hand tightly. It was like a hurricane had blown through the room. I wasn't quite ready to breathe just yet.

"Jake, man," I spoke up, not trusting Rachel'scease-fire to last for long, "It's sci-fi. Back to the Future. Marty changes a tiny little thing, and 30 years later his parents are completely different people living completely different lives."

"The Butterfly Effect," Cassie said quietly, "If they go back and change things, if we don't become the Animorphs, if we don't fight, we don't meet them. If we don't meet them, how do they know to go back and change things."

I saw the wheels turn in Jake's head, and I knew it had clicked for him.

{So what? There's got to be another way…} Rachel's thought-speak sounded unsure, but she wasn't ready to give up the fight just yet.

"We called them 'a fixed point in time'," the Doctor said, sounding incredibly tired. Like he hated the words as much as we did, "My people, the Time Lords… there are things that can't be changed. Not without unraveling the very fabric of the universe."

{Who cares?!} said Rachel with a low growl coming from the grizzly morph.

"We have to care, you idiot!" I yelled. I was angry at her now. "You think we all don't want this to work? Jake's brother is in a living hell. I spent all that time thinking my mom was dead, only to find out she's one of them, probably wishing she was! If we can deal with that, then maybe you SHOULD LEARN TO DEAL WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND BEING A BIRD SOMETIMES!}

{SHUT UP MARCO!}

I found myself staring down a 10 foot tall grizzly bear. I didn't even care. I was mad at this whole mess, and if taking it out on her made me feel better, then I was sure going to do it.

{Rachel…}

Tobias stared at her. I don't know what he said to her, in private though-speak, but whatever it was didn't make her any happier.

RAAAAAAWWWWWGGGRRRRRR!

The grizzly's roar shook the very air around us and Rachel charged out of the TARDIS with surprising speed. She rammed into one of the metal pipes as she ran, bending it. Her bear form barely made it through the doors. I heard a heavy wooden thud from one of them smacking the outside as she left. The Doctor didn't say anything though. The guy didn't even look particularly surprised or upset. Quietly, Jake took Cassie's hand from his arm.

"Go follow her, you two," he said, gesturing to Tobias as well, "Calm her down, make sure she doesn't do anything dumb or get herself in trouble."

{Right,} said Tobias.

He flew threw the open doors, and Cassie followed, already rapidly changing into a grey wolf.

The rest of us stood awkwardly, unsure of what to say. Ax shifted, his hooves making faint tings against the metal floor. I guess none of us were really sure what the proper etiquette for saying 'Sorry my friend turned into a grizzly bear and smashed part of your spaceship' or 'Sorry that we can't bend the laws of space and time for you' was. Somebody was gonna have to say something.

"So, uh…" I began.

I didn't finish. Didn't know what to say. Lucky for me, I guess, Rose spoke up then.

"I tried, once," she said, "My dad. He died before I ever knew him. And I just wanted to meet him, yeah? Only I couldn't…"

Her voice cracked, and she wiped her eyes with her free hand as the Doctor squeezed the other.

"Things went wrong. Really, really wrong."

She paused and took a deep breath before looking up at us.

"You don't want that. Believe me."

{Time travel complicates many things… we've seen the same effect with the _Saario Rip_. The events in the jungle that no one remembers but you, Prince Jake.}

Jake sighed, and bent his faced down to rub his forehead. He had been my best friend since we were in diapers, and I knew all to well when he was trying to gather himself to hide his emotions. It killed him, realizing they were right. That this couldn't work.

"If there was a way," said the Doctor, "I'd use it. I know it's not what you want to hear. But believe me- I'll still help you stop this. Put things right again."

It was quiet again, except for a slight creaking and moaning coming from the ship. I saw a dim screen on the console flicker and go out. Sighing, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and leaned back against the rails.

"Well, I'm betting someone who's ship can travel instantly anywhere in the universe can probably still be pretty useful in kicking Yeerk butt," I said.

I saw Jake smile a little bit. Rose even laughed. Awesome.

"You'd be surprised how good I am at kicking how many alien empire's butts. It's actually quite an impressive list of butts that have been kicked."

Now the Doctor smiled, and Jake laughed too.

"Well, strictly speaking, most of them don't have 'butts' per say. I haven't actually thought about it til just now. Well, I've thought about it, just more from scientific, anatomical sense, and less from this particular-"

"Yeah, we get it," I interrupted, "Many butts have been metaphorically kicked."

"Aftran would like me to mention that Yeerks do not, in fact, have 'anything resembling a human excretory system'," Rose laughed and her voice stumbled a bit, "and that 'the Yeerk body is capable of releasing any excess waste through their body mucus during their stay in a Pool."

That kind of killed the laughter for the Animorphs in the room. Right. We had a newly liberated rebel Yeerk to figure out what to do with too. Right. Because we didn't have enough going on already. Now Jake had his "serious leader" face on again. Greaaaat. Surprisingly, it was Ax who spoke first.

{I have been considering the issue of the Yeerk Aftran,} he began, {Especially given her pivotal role in… saving my life. I feel that I owe her a debt.}

Well. There was one thing I wasn't expecting to hear.


End file.
